E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG BY TODD SWIFT

Britain's acclaimed architect expert, critic, bon vivant, wit, and writer, Charles Knevitt, is coming to New York for two one-man shows - LE CORBUSIER'S WOMEN - at the famous Bowery Poetry club, soon, to do a reading of his play on the life of great modernist Le Corbusier.

The play is sexy, scandalous, informative, and fun, and it is recommended by Eyewear, not least because Knevitt wears Le Corbusier glasses.

There will be two performances at Bowery, both on Sunday, September 22nd.

The Le Corbusier exhibition at MoMA closes the following day, Monday 23rd. It claims 4,000 visitors a day.

For full details and to purchase tickets: lecorbusier.brownpapertickets.com

Follow CK on Twitter @lecorbusierNYC

i.m. Seamus Heaney 1939-2013

The windmills turn, but no one can push back the wind.
It comes from the far darkness, and without a sound
war drops confetti primers where the young will find
the haw beds stirring, laughing where great words resound.
The spires of the citadel are stark and bare,
no longer young, none striding forth with prospects there
to find the mazy streets lead to the fullsome world . . .
for darkness once again has been to darkness hurled.
A great one's passed, who validated much of youth . . .
to rattle in the darkness, finding signs of truth.
His clear voice boomed and worked to put us all at ease
with prospects of a keen, perpetual increase.
Now we shall hear his voice no more, except in signs
the sharp and shaping anvil has its grand designs. poem by Ben Mazer, copyright 2013

In Memoriam, Seamus Heaney

A day after parliament stopped the British from war
and now the heart-stopping news
you are no longer the bearer
of a passport that let you travel far and wide.

Ready to be lugged and thrown, however gently
into the difficult ground you measured
as it was sown, with seed or wound - to flower
only later, for it is near-autumn, and the harvest

coming in is not for you to see or taste.
Seamus, you had the tongue to take what's best
of sound and give out what had to be said -
in a governed way, that understood the dead.

You were no comedian like Wilde,
no tragedian like Yeats; your vision a middle way.
Your Virgil was Ireland, bringing you upwards
to the light, which sees and says the best things.

There will be massacres and weapons inspectors
Sunday, and the year after, and arguably
until time stops working, and it never does.
Only bodies halt, and that is a bitterness

to drink down.  Sweet hearts fail.  Words go on.


poem by Todd Swift, copyright 2013

I met Seamus Heaney once - he was celebrating the tenth anniversary of his win of the Nobel prize - and I was part of the dinner party (a guest of Tamar Yoseloff).  We spoke briefly, and he called me "Hot Toddy".  I am very sad - even unexpectedly moved - to learn of his untimely death at the age of 74.  Heaney was the greatest living traditional, lyric poet, since Philip Larkin.  He was not as great as Yeats, or Kavanagh, but he was a poetic genius, and, what is more, he reached out to the common reader in a way that was astounding; his warmth was palpable - he cared about readers and people.  I feel that his poetry will be judged to have shied away too much from the themes of love and bodily passion that made Yeats so universal - and his over reliance on the Classical tradition was perhaps old-fashioned - but in his best poems, no one could match his moral vision, his sonic intelligence, and his gravitas. He saw far and wide. I don't think he was a very witty poet, but…

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Eyewear's view is that it is a potential tragedy, for the following reasons: while it is good that the primacy of parliament was upheld, it is not clear such a domestic ai…